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On June 28th, foursquare announced their new Connected Apps platform. This new platform gives mobile apps two channels to increase engagement and exposure with foursquare users and their foursquare friends.

Channel One: Inside the foursquare check-in

Channel Two: Inside Friends’ Activity Stream

Channel One: Inside the foursquare check-in

1. The new Connected Apps platform allows an app to communicate within a foursquare users’s check-in IF the foursquare user has previously connected their foursquare account with the app.
You can easily test this out by connecting your foursquare account with The Weather Channel (click here). With your first check-in of each day, The Weather Channel sends you a summary of the day’s forecast within that check-in.

Click through the message from The Weather Channel to see a full forecast of the day.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

(Measurable Increase in Engagement & Exposure)

Your brand has a one-to-one communication channel to serve messages directly to each engaged user who connects to your brand app. Your brand app can seamlessly send appropriate messages to foursquare users in their check-in screen. Exposure with your brand increases through these seamlessly sent messages. Engagement with your brand increases as these messages also allow the user to click through to your branded app.

Channel Two: Inside Every User’s Friends’ Activity Stream

2. When a user connects their foursquare account to a connected app, a message appears in their friends’ activity stream, broadcasting that they have connected to your branded app.

If a friend clicks on this message in their activity stream, the friend will be taken to a new screen with the opportunity to connect to your branded app (example Foodspotting below).

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

(Measurable Increase in Engagement & Exposure)

If a user connects their foursquare account to your brand app, your brand’s exposure increases to each of that user’s friends in the foursquare ecosystem. Through this new viral exposure, your branded app will acquire new users and increase overall engagement with your brand.

When a check-in on foursquare occurs through a third-party connected app like Soundtracking, the platform also broadcasts a link in every activity stream of that user’s friends and within the user’s check-in.

Here’s an example: If a user tracks a song on Soundtracking, and connects a foursquare location to the Soundtracking post; all through the Soundtracking app, then a post in foursquare, with the Soundtracking brand will appear in two places:

a. In all of the user’s foursquare friends’ activity stream showing your Soundtracking check-in with an active link back to the Soundtracking app.

b. Within the user’s check-in.

Each post can take the user through to the Soundtracking app once the user checking in or that user’s friends clicks through the Soundtracking link.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

(Measurable Increase in Engagement & Exposure)

Brands receive viral exposure through the network of friends of each user who uses your branded app to check-in on foursquare. If your brand has influential foursquare users using your app to check-in, your brand will receive higher quality exposure and engagement throughout the foursquare ecosystem.

Every person who uses your app to check-in on foursquare will seamlessly broadcast your brand and a link to your brand to all of their foursquare friends creating a measurable viral awareness effect for increasing engagement and exposure for your brand and branded app.

NEXT ACTION ITEMS – FOR BRAND MANAGERS

If you are a brand that has an app, work with your team, or find a dev team, to integrate your app into the foursquare Connected Apps platform so your brand can also increase engagement and exposure with foursquare’s 20 Million+ daily active users by reading documentation on the Connected Apps platform here

If you are a brand that is in the process of building an app, have your dev team read documentation on the Connected Apps platform here, and integrate foursquare into your app so you too can take advantage of this new too to increase exposure and engagement for your brand.

Adam Bauer is a co-founder of Location Star, a location-based brand marketing company. One of Location Star’s platform and services helps brands create, stage, and more efficiently deliver foursquare Tips and Lists + optimize and manage their worldwide venues to maximize accurate exposure and attract more customers. Adam has delivered integrated marketing strategies for Fortune 500 brands over the last nine years with his marketing agency, Big Sky Media.